Sacrifices
by mimma
Summary: She hopes that Gaara of the Sand will not mind a marked bride.
1. Chapter 1

Sacrifices

Chapter one of three

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Summary: Hinata is a good daughter, and a good ninja of Konoha.

It was, as the elders explained it, an extremely logical decision. Marriage was an age-old tradition to cement such alliances, after all. The Hyuuga were the oldest clan in Konoha, and made up a good portion of it's strength, Hinata was a passable ninja in her own right, and the _you don't need her to take over the clan, anyway_ was danced around in delicate coughs and mutters and meaningful looks at Neji sitting in barely contained rage as the oldest male child and Hanabi gaping slightly as the heir-apparent.

Hinata sat, and listened, and at the end of it, when the elders had left and her father was shaking and Neji-niisan had marked a punch-dent into the wall said, "I'll accept."

Hanabi gasped, quietly, stared at her weak, indecisive sister sitting seiza near the door, Neji forgot himself enough to snarl, _you will **not** _and Hiashi… just stared at his daughter, who loved flowers and plants and the sharp smell of earth under her hands.

"Father," said Hinata, "Brother, Sister," picking at the edge of her sleeve, "I would be honored to do this for the clan," her chin rose, unsteadily, "and for Konoha, as well."

"Sister," said Hanabi, "He's a monster."

Hinata shook her head, firmly, "No. Naruto-kun," her voice did not tremble, and Neji was faintly proud, "has said he is not. I trust that."

And Hiashi looked at his weak, not-enough daughter, whom he had loved the most, once, when she had carried such hopes for the clan that they had drowned out all of her own, when she had not been so jaded with the ways of the world, proposing to leave her family, her friends, her home, and start one with a man until recently (still?) ruled by bloodlust, make new ones among unfriendly eyes, and live in an acrid desert with sand that would sting her eyes.

He would have cried, if the head of the Hyuuga house did such things, to see her holding herself so still that she shook all over, or Neji shaken out of his calm to gape at Hinata with blank, blank eyes, (was this how it had looked like/was this how it had felt when the lightning had demanded his head, so long ago?) mouth falling open around a _Hinata-sama_ Neji didn't voice because it would have come out broken, over a child he had been told would his to protect always and a girl he had tried to murder because his father had died in her name.

Now Neji was looking at a woman who wanted to create more peace in the leaf than any fighter, willing to create a new future because her old dreams weren't worth clinging to. Who would soon be marked with seal he despised.

Hiashi blessed his daughter, cursed his clan, and prayed that someone, somewhere would appreciate this, his daughter's sacrifice for a formality.

The elders were informed the next day, and thus as a concession to Hinata's compliance ruled that the wedding would be held in Konoha, which was the brides home and much, much easier to get supplies in.

Hinata adds on the last part her self, and is not at all surprised.

.0.

Hinata was marked with the seal. Neji's request to be excused was overruled. Hiashi made a choked sound and pressed his lips to his daughter's marked forehead, daring the assembled clan to comment. Hanabi hid in her room later, and cried. Hinata stares at her face in the mirror for a very long time.

Gaara of the sand arrives in two weeks. She hopes he will not mind a marked bride.

.0.

Temari of the Sand is loud, brash, and here on the behalf of her brother, after finding out from Shikamaru that her future sister-in-law is the shyest girl in the village.

Hanabi does not stop her. Neji does not stop her. Some of the stupider branch house members try, but Temari just flicks them through a wall.

She has a long talk with Hinata. It involves, at one point or another, the words 'my idiot brother', and 'not that bad'.

Hinata agrees with the second point, and Temari hopes that her brother's marriage will not be as bereft of love as the most of his life was.

Hinata also agrees.

-tbc-


	2. Chapter 2

Sacrifices

Chapter 2 of three

Kiba and Shino are the first outsiders to hear, as is Kurenai, who takes one look at Hinata's face and walks off to get a drink or several.

Kiba sputters, and begins to shout, as loud as he can. Every noisy profanity lowers in volume until finally he mutters a, "…not…_fair_…" under his breath and scrubs fiercely at his eyes.

Shino considers it carefully, and, leaning against a tree trunk, asks her if she is sure.

"Yes," she says. Kiba stares at her, asks her "_Why?_" , and she shrugs.

Akamaru offers her a hug. She accepts it.

It is a very nice hug.

.0.

The first time she actually meets her future husband face-to-face, she is not at all prepared.

He walks into the Hyuuga compound a few days ahead of the delegation from Sand, having gone ahead for reasons of his own. This one, she suspects. She sees him in one of the formal meeting rooms.

When she stumbles into it, she is flushed, partly from excitement and exertion, and she is afraid.

"I am Gaara of the Sand," he says without preamble. No other words are necessary, his title says it all. "We are going to be married in two weeks."

"Yes," she says, bowing to him. He inclines his head at her, his posture one her father would have loved for her to emulate.

"I-" he hesitates, almost, and she envies him his ability to look perfectly sure even when he is not. "I will try to be a good husband to you."

"Thank you," she says, eyes downcast. If he is willing, then there is no reason why she cannot do the same. "I will be a good wife as well, Kazekage-sama."

He looks as though he is struggling with himself as he rises. She does not try to open the door for him, Hinata would only get in his way.

"What is your name?" he asks, back to her, face unreadable in any case. She supposes she should have been grateful that the elders had so much as bothered to inform him that she was Hyuuga.

"Hinata," she tells him.

He nods. "You may call me Gaara, Hinata. You are going to be my wife."

After he leaves, she slumps against a wall, remembering the coolness (but not cold, she knows cold, not the freezing aura of disdain but the lukewarm waters of unfamiliarity) of his gaze, the stone of his voice and face.

Gaara is going to be her husband. She is going to spend the rest of her life with that man.

She cries because she is being self-pitying. To do it for any other reason would be an insult to the Kazekage-sama, an insult to a man who is doing his duty as much as she is.

Neji sees her red eyes, but says nothing. She is grateful. Hinata is more than enough of an embarrassment to the family as it is.

.0.

The next time he visits her, he lets himself into her garden, and stands there for a few minutes before she notices him, dry branches casting deep shadows under his eyes, like the not-faded ones beneath his eyes.

_Gaara sees the absorption on her face and the curve of her neck as she replants a sapling, and lingers on the gentle hands smoothing soil over delicate roots._

Hinata greets him, stumbling over the beginnings of his title before settling on his name.

_Temari says that Hinata is shy. Temari says that Hinata is easily scared. Temari says that he should be nice to Hinata. Gaara thinks he has no idea how to._

He nods to her, and Hinata has no idea what to say, no idea what to do, or even if she should do anything at all.

_She is quiet and small and weak. She is scared, not afraid. She is going to be his wife. Gaara feels, for a moment or two, almost overwhelmed._

They are the both of them hopeful, with no idea as to what about.

-tbc-


	3. Chapter 3

Sacrifices

Chapter 3 of 3

The wedding is a stiff, formal affair, with half the Konoha guests glaring balefully at alternately the elders and the groom, and the other half staring at their cups because they cannot stand to look anywhere else. In grand tradition, both the lucky man and the blushing bride both pretend to have gone suddenly deaf, blind and mute, ignoring all and sundry, from well-wishers to the silent brooding people sulking in corners. One wrong word, one overly patronizing speech by an elder and the whole place feels like it would go up in flames and blades.

This is a curious, strange mix of apathy and emotion, balanced on a knife blade, and this is supposed to be the happiest day of Hinata's life.

She tries to convince herself that it is- she is cementing the alliance, preventing further blood shed, doing something, _anything_ instead of sitting by.

It doesn't work.

No one really notices, because when you are a failure of the Hyuuga house you learn to hold your head high, and thus there is no shameful saltiness to their wedding toast, merely a tremble in her hands.

Actually, it is not that no one notices. Some notice, but say nothing. These do not trust themselves to say too much.

.0.

The wedding night is… strange. For one, other than the fact that it is the night of her wedding day and her husband is the same room, it bears no other resemblance to a wedding night. Hinata is grateful for this. Certainly she does have… duties to perform, but-

_Not yet, not now, not when I barely know him and not like this. Not in my ancestral home, the house of a family that did not want me and with the white sheet on the bed because they can._

"Which side of the bed would you like?" he asks her, after silently watching her slide out of her formal clothes before she gained enough courage to ask him to look away while she slipped into a sleeping yukata.

Mute, she nods at him. _You can chose_, she doesn't say, because if she talks she _will _stutter, even after hours in front of a mirror practicing.

He takes the side closest to the door. This leaves Hinata with just a few inches between the end of her side of the bed and a wall. She wonders if that is deliberate, or if taking the outside position is more natural to him. At least she knows she has never been inclined to roll.

His breathing is deep, even, steady and faint. She falls asleep easily.

She is pale, drawn, curled up and sleeping with her back to him. He watches her for perhaps longer than someone who has a meeting in the morning should, and doesn't care.

.0.

The journey to Sand is uneventful. Gaara spends most of his time talking with his advisors about events in the Sand, Hinata with their wives about the same thing.

Temari is a good deal more helpful than any of them. "Keep your head up," she advises Hinata. "You have the Byakugan, use it. You're the Kazekage's wife, you don't have to take shit from any of those cats over there."

"I suppose missions are out of the question, too?" says Hinata, attempting to sound light-hearted.

"More or less," shrugs Temari. "I'm basically a glorified message runner these days- even before they were terrified risking the Yondaime's daughter, never mind the Godaime's sister whom he appears principally fond of and now his wife from a Konoha noble family."

"Oh," Hinata says, and looks down at her folded hands.

"You could have children," suggests Temari vaguely, aware that she is not being as helpful as she originally set out to be.

Hinata thinks that would be difficult, since at this point she and her husband barely share a meal, let alone a bed.

Temari tells her that they will have to work out that one for themselves.

.0.

In the village, a few days after she has gotten settled in a room adjoining that of Gaara's, they do.

He wakes in the night with a half-stifled cry, sweat beading on his body.

Hinata, too, wakes, running in remotely conscious and concerned.

"Gaara-san?" she says, laying a hand on his heaving shoulder.

He looks at her with wild eyes and pulls her down, so that she sprawls over his lap in her thin sleeping yukata with his fingers on the pulse point of her neck and his arm around her waist. She is breathing and her blood is all in her body, pulsing in her veins…

"G-Gaara-san?" she stammers.

_I dreamt I killed you, _he thinks about telling her. _I dreamt I'd suffocated you and pulled you to pieces and watched your blood pool on the floor_. He thinks about making her run away so that he can't hurt this small, weak, woman.

"A memory," he says instead. "Do not concern yourself." Just a little tighter, just a dip of his head into the curve of her neck… "Go- go back to bed."

She turns her head to his. She knew what sort of memories he would have that caused him to bolt awake, and… "Would- w- would you like me t-to… _stay?_" This was what you _did_, anyway…

Gaara thinks about what might happen if he sends her back, and what might happen if she stays. He thinks about tears she has not allowed to fall in his presence, about her weakness, and the way she looked in her garden. He thinks about how this marriage is one of insurance and all the things marriage is supposed to mean. He thinks –feels- her softness and her warmth and the vaguely warm stirrings within him. He thinks about how no one at all in the Sand has ever attempted to offer him comfort before besides his siblings.

"Yes," he says, and brushes a hand over the mark on her forehead.

.0.

They deal.

-ende-

Well, no, not really, there's still the epilogue but this chapter got a bit too long and I have a Chinese exam tomorrow so… yeah. Wait for it.

Note: the white sheet thing is supposed to be stained with a bride's virgin blood after the wedding night. Add it up.


	4. Chapter 4

Sacrifices

Epilogue

Two years after they get married, Hinata has a daughter.

She has black hair, and aqua eyes, and the solemn, wide-eyed countenance of both her parents. She doesn't bemuse Gaara, she terrifies him, and the Kazekage goes around in a constant state of almost-panic, like he has for the entire time Hinata was pregnant. They have a brief, extremely mild contest of demurral over her name, before Temari comes up with the bright idea of drawing suggestions from both villages from Gaara's hat. A surprising number of papers are _not _thrown away, but Shikamaru deals with Temari sulking for weeks when her niece is named without Gaara even bothering to glance at the papers or his hat.

Hinata enjoys this all immensely, and suspects from the tilt of her husband's eyes that he does as well.

.0.

One day after a long meeting with the heads of various clans, who spend the whole time hinting unsubtly that the outsider would not understand, he stops her in the hall on the way to a formal dinner and asks her calmly, with concern, "You…were uncomfortable. Is it so bad?"

Hinata almost says, _it's our duty_, like- like their marriage, she knows, like the way she must handle the household, and their daughter, and… loving him… like a good wife…

"No, it isn't," not so bad, not just a sacrifice she's making, "Not at all."

His brow creases, "If you are sure…"

"Yes," in a breath across his face, a peck of uncharacteristic affection on his cheek, "I'm sure."

He brushes a hand over her cheek, uncertain, soft. "Very well."

They are announced into the formal dining room as the lord and lady of the Sand, and by the side Temari and Kankurou are (not) quietly fighting with Hanabi for their niece, and with her husband's hand supporting her slightly with his hand on her obi, it's not so bad.

Not bad at all.

-end-


End file.
